Fall Gaming Round Up

As I discussed before, this fall has been absolutely lousy with quality game releases. Now that we're getting near the end of that release season, I wanted to give my impressions of the games I played.

Join me after the break for some game recommendations.

Point Cost Shifting and Model Redemption

Warmachine is at a dangerous place in it's release cycle: a new Hordes book has been released and is shaking up the meta a bit, while all the Warmachine armies sit unchanged since the last book update (note: this happens for Hordes as well, just on the opposite cycle.)

This phenomenon will naturally be resolved when new releases start flowing again, so it's not like the game is in any danger of imploding. What I find most interesting is that it is almost always during this period of time that talks of "Mk. 3", "Mk. 2 Remix", significant errata, etc, start cropping up.

The obvious explanation for this desire is that players get burned out on playing with and against the "same 'ol stuff", and thus seek to shake the system up in the most explicit way possible. While I do think this is part of it, I think there is an thought process which leads to that conclusion, and examining that thought process yields the root of the problem.

Interstellar

After having a week or so to digest Interstellar, my feelings are the same as after I first watched it: its a pretty good sci-fi movie, with awesome visuals, a fantastic soundtrack, and some fun (at least for me) concepts that it plays around with.

It tries a little too hard in places, but overall this movie is Nolan in fine form: a strong narrative voice, clear themes, and very impressive cinematography. More in-depth and spoiler-y thoughts after the break.

One last thing before venturing into spoiler territory: we saw this movie in IMAX, and I think it did make a difference. The already impressive visuals of some of the space travel sequences were astonishing on that huge screen, and the sound was used very effectively to pull you into the experience. The biggest downside is that the movie ends up being so damn loud in places that I walked out feeling half-deaf, but that aside it felt like money well spent.

Painting Log: Ototo

There is a phenomenon that I've encountered in all my years of painting miniatures, one that I should have a cute name for by now, but in the absence of a really good name I'll just refer to it as a "loomer."

Warmachine: Reckoning Model Art Previews

The latest league vaults just opened up, and they hoarfed upon us some very interesting concept art for models that will be in Warmachine: Reckoning.

Join me after the break for the images, as well as some quick impressions.

Relic Knights - Noh In-Game Model Impressions

As a follow up to the recent game of Relic Knights I played, I wanted to sort out my thoughts on the models I used. With other battle reports I'd just toss that in at the tail end of the write up, but Relic Knights is a little weird (and sort of like Malifaux) in that not every game is going to be a good demonstration of what a model is capable of. And it's also not a game system where you necessarily build lists just to feature a specific model/combo (though I think RK lends itself to that a lot more than Malifaux does.)

With that in mind, and with the caveat that these impressions are based off of a whopping one game's experience, join me after the break for my thoughts about various Noh Empire models.

Relic Knights - Zineda (Noh) vs Leopold Magnus (Black Diamond)

I've mused before about the importance of having other game systems to rotate through as a way of relieving gaming fatigue. The upside of this approach is that you always have something to play - if you're bored/frustrated/burned out with what you've been playing, just switch it up!

The downside to this approach is that you can end up with systems you don't play very often and models that collect dust. I've tried to cull my model collection down to the games and armies that I'm most excited to paint and play. Even then, there are only so many hours to devote to gaming so some games are going to get more attention than others.

So when one of my gaming buddies brought up the prospect of dusting off the Relic Knights stuff we all bought, I happily agreed. Join me after the break for a recap of the game (this system defies the traditional battle report structure something fierce,) and impressions from my second full game of Relic Knights.

Painting Log: December Acolytes

The painting train continues a-rolling along. Both December Acolytes are finished, and with them all of the models I own for Rasputina's crew are painted! Now I just need to sit back and wait for the slow trickle of Wyrd releases to get around to releasing more "in theme" models.

Images and model thoughts after the break.

Too Many Cooks

This is the kind of random, bizarre, hilarious stuff that made me fall in love with Adult Swim back in the day. Video after the break.

Horns

I am something of a lapsed reader.

Hordes: Exigence Review - Wrap Up

The faction reviews for Hordes: Exigence are complete! For ease of reference, here are the links to each faction's review:

• Trollbloods
• Circle Orboros
• Legion of Everblight
• Skorne
• Minions

With all of those reviews complete, there are a few last things I wanted to touch on.

Hordes: Exigence Review - Minions

After reviewing the other four factions, it is now time to hit up the Minions releases from Hordes: Exigence. The grading criteria and scale (rated as 1 to 5 flail-chucks) are outlined in the Trollbloods review (first link in the previous sentence,) so lets get right into it!

John Wick

There is a phenomenon I'm running into more and more often nowadays: the question of "is it out yet?" This seems to happen most often with movies; between early reviews, rolling trailer releases, and weeks of promotions, I often find myself excited to see a movie, only to realize that it won't be out for another two weeks.

Such was the case with Interstellar, a movie my wife and I are very interested in seeing, but apparently doesn't come out until this week. Which was a damn shame, because we were all psyched up to go see it this past weekend. I'm not entirely sure why we thought the movie would be out (my guess is that the media buzz leading up to it's release tipped us off early,) but, due to a malfunction in my time machine, we had to bump our plans back a week.

A similar thing happened with the latest Keanu Reeves action movie, John Wick. I first read a (very positive) review of the movie around a month or so ago. For whatever reason - chalk it up to originally only seeing reviews on TV or reading them in newspapers/magazines - I'm conditioned to expect that, by the time I read a movie review, the movie is either out or will be out shortly. So when I read the review I expected John Wick to be in theaters, and I was excited to see it.

Apparently I had gotten a hold of an early review or something, because I was off by a few weeks. John Wick eventually released and more positive reviews came along. I was still interested in seeing it, though it being an action movie made it a difficult pitch for movie night.

Fortunately I managed to have some extra free time this past weekend, which allowed me to catch John Wick before it slid out of theaters.

And goddamn was that worth the money.

There isn't a lot to say about John Wick that hasn't been said elsewhere, but I'll add my praise to the pile all the same: it's one of the best action movies I've seen in awhile. If you're a fan of action movies and you've been looking for your fix, go see it ASAP. You will not regret this decision, and everyone behind John Wick deserves to have fistfuls of money thrown at them as a reward for bringing us this beautiful-terrible ballet of bullets and revenge.

That's the short version. Join me behind the break for extended impressions, some of which may be very vaguely spoiler-y in nature (though I won't be discussing anything you couldn't find in an average press release for the movie.)